[squeak-dev] [ANN] Fundamentals volume 1

Andres Valloud avalloud at smalltalk.comcastbiz.net
Sat Aug 15 02:28:49 UTC 2009


Hello,

I just published the 400 page book Fundamentals of Smalltalk Programming Technique, volume 1. To some extent it's fitting that I am publishing another book this time of the year. I started writing the Mentoring Course book (of which the Hash book was chapter 7) almost 4 years ago. The three books total about 1200 pages.

Something I realized with the Mentoring Course book is that I could take advantage of mentoring myself because I had already sharpened several Smalltalk skills. The Fundamentals book talks about these abilities. As with the Mentoring Course book, there is too much material for a single book. Thus, the first volume just published talks about the controlled manipulation of boolean expressions, inheritance, and polymorphism. In fact, there is a continuum of points of view on the subjects, ranging from the goal of producing very little yet highly maintainable code, to the architecture of highly optimized implementations, as well as valuable compromises in between. In fact, at times, it is possible to avoid sacrificing flexibility for speed, or viceversa.

The second volume will talk about enumeration, recursion, weakness, and optimization. I am sure it will be a fun book to write. In the mean time, enjoy volume 1!

http://www.lulu.com/content/7451511

http://www.lulu.com/avSmalltalkBooks

Andres.




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